Miranda July, the performance artist/writer/actress/director best known for her film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, has installed her public art piece Eleven Heavy Things in New York’s Union Square Park. The sculptures, which debuted at the 2009 Venice Biennale, are designed to create photo-ops for passersby who choose to interact with the art.

For some time now, the spot in has been relatively empty aside from mud, waste and strewn garbage. There’s an application to build condos on the site. It has remained undisturbed since Monday and I watered it yesterday because there hasn’t been any rain lately… Grass is pretty resilient, so it should survive and take root unless/until somebody removes it. Joe Clement assisted me with the install.

At last weekend’s Art Under the Bridge Festival in Brooklyn, artists Jennifer Fisher and Christian Cerrito launched their Red Arrow Project. The project consisted of several floating cursor kites (which were tied to weather balloons) pointing at random locations and encouraging people to be mindful of things they normally might not look at.

Today is Park(ing) Day 2009. Groups around the world will turn parking spaces into temporary public parks.

San Francisco art collective REBAR first created “PARK(ing)” in 2005 to re-imagine the potential of the metered parking space. In 2006, in collaboration with TPL, REBAR founded “PARK(ing) Day”: a global exploration of the creative potential of streets.

Here’s a video from Park(ing) Day NYC 2006:

Last year I had a delightful time relaxing in a park on 6th Avenue and 24th Street. If you find a parking space park today in your town, let us know in the comments.

This caught my eye in Union Square a couple of weeks ago. From a distance I thought I might have stumbled onto a Mark Jenkins tape sculpture. He’s in town with a solo show at Stricola. It turned out that the dummy was the work of a group of high school students from the Lyons Community School in Brooklyn. I caught them watching me and went over to investigate. They were doing this Jenkins-inspired project for a class and were there to observe people’s reactions. Cool!

Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

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About

Urban Prankster covers pranks, hacks, participatory art, and other creative endeavors that take place in public places in cities across the world. It is edited by Charlie Todd.
This blog was updated from 2008 to 2011. It was retired because in that time I realized I wasn't interested in being a blogger and that it was taking time away from my primary focus, creating.